GORDON.

O, thou shalt see its fairest grace and honour
In my Elizabeth. And if music touch thee-

SWINTON.

It did, before disasters had untuned me.

GORDON.

O, her notes

Shall hush each sad remembrance to oblivion,
Or melt them to such gentleness of feeling,
That grief shall have its sweetness. Who, but she,
Knows the wild harpings of our native land?
Whether they lull the shepherd on his hill,

Or wake the knight to battle; rouse to merriment,
Or soothe to sadness; she can touch each mood.
Princes and statesmen, chiefs renown'd in arms,
And grey-hair'd bards, contend which shall the first
And choicest homage render to th' enchantress.

Bless'd privilege

Of youth! There's scarce three minutes to decide
"Twixt death and life, 'twixt triumph and defeat,
Yet all his thoughts are in his lady's bower,
List'ning her harping!—

[Enter VIPONT, Where are thine, De Vipont?

VIPONT.

On death-on judgment-on eternity!

For time is over with us.

SWINTON.

There moves not, then, one pennon to our aid,

Of all that flutter yonder !

VIPONT.

From the main English host come rushing forward
Pennons enow-ay, and their Royal Standard.
But ours stand rooted, as for crows to roost on.

No, thou wilt not command me seek my safety,-
For such is thy kind meaning,-at the expense

Of the last hope which Heaven reserves for Scotland.
While I abide, no follower of mine

Will turn his rein for life; but were I gone,

What power can stay them? and, our band dispersed,
What swords shall for an instant stem yon host,
And save the latest chance for victory?

And am I forced to yield the sad consent,

Devoting thy young life? O Gordon, Gordon !

I do it as the patriarch doom'd his issue ;

I at my country's, he at Heaven's command;

But I seek vainly some atoning sacrifice,

Rather than such a victim !-(Trumpets.) Hark, they come! That music sounds not like thy lady's lute.

GORDON.

Yet shall my lady's name mix with it gaily.-
Mount, vassals, couch your lances, and cry,
Gordon for Scotland and Elizabeth!"

"Gordon!

[Exeunt, Loud alarum,

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

THE VIOLET.
[1797-]

It appears from the Life of Scott, vol. i. p. 333, that these lines, first published in the English Minstrelsy, 1810, were written in 1797, on occasion of the Poet's disappointment in love.

TO A LADY.

WITH FLOWERS FROM A ROMAN WALL.

[1797.]

Written in 1797, on an excursion from Gillsland, in Cumberland. See Life,

vol. i. p. 365.

THE BARD'S INCANTATION.

WRITTEN UNDER THE THREAT OF INVASION IN THE AUTUMN OF 1804.

There is a voice among the trees,
That mingles with the groaning oak—
That mingles with the stormy breeze,
And the lake-waves dashing against
the rock ;-

There is a voice within the wood,
The voice of the bard in fitful mood;
His song was louder than the blast,
As the bard of Glenmore through the
forest past.

"Wake ye from your sleep of death,
Minstrels and bards of other days!
For the midnight wind is on the heath,
And the midnight meteors dimly
blaze :

The Spectre with his Bloody Hand, Is wandering through the wild woodland;

The owl and the raven are mute for dread,

And the time is meet to awake the dead!

Nor through the pines, with whistling change

Mimic the harp's wild harmony! Mute are ye now ?-Ye ne'er were mute,

When Murder with his bloody foot,
And Rapine with his iron hand,
Were hovering near yon mountain
strand.

"O yet awake the strain to tell,

By every deed in song enroll'd, By every chief who fought or fell,

For Albion's weal in battle bold :From Coilgach, first who roll'd his car Through the deep ranks of Roman war, To him, of veteran memory dear, Who victor died on Aboukir.

"By all their swords, by all their scars,

By all their names, a mighty spell !
By all their wounds, by all their wars,

Arise, the mighty strain to tell!
For fiercer than fierce Hengist's strain,
More impious than the heathen Dane,
More grasping than all-grasping Rome,
Gaul's ravening legions hither come!"
The wind is hush'd, and still the lake-
Strange murmurs fill my tinkling ears,
Bristles my hair, my sinews quake,
At the dread voice of other years—
"When targets clash'd, and bugles

HELLVELLYN.
[1805.]

In the spring of 1805, a young gentleman of talents, and of a most amiable disposition, perished by losing his way on the mountain Hellvellyn. His remains were not discovered till three months afterwards, when they were found guarded by a faithful terrier-bitch, his constant attendant during frequent solitary rambles through the wilds of Cumberland and Westmoreland.

I CLIMB'D the dark brow of the mighty Hellvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleam'd misty and wide;

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending,
And Catchedicam its left verge was defending,

One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending,

When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain heather,
Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretch'd in decay,
Like the corpse of an outcast abandon'd to weather,
Till the mountain-winds wasted the tenantless clay.
Nor yet quite deserted, though lonely extended,
For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended,
The much-loved remains of her master defended,
And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber?
When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start?
How many long days and long weeks didst thou number,
Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart?
And, oh! was it meet, that—no requiem read o'er him—
No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him,
And thou, little guardian, alone stretch'd before him—
Unhonour'd the Pilgrim from life should depart ?
When a Prince to the fate of the Peasant has yielded,
The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall;
With scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded,

And pages stand mute by the canopied pall:

Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming;
In the proudly-arch'd chapel the banners are beaming;
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb,
When, wilder'd, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,
And draws his last sob by the side of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,
Thy obsequies sung by the grey plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Hellvellyn and Catchedicam.

THE DYING BARD.

[1806.]

AIR-Daffydz Gangwen.

The Welsh tradition bears, that a Bard, on his death-bed, demanded his harp, and played the air to which these verses are adapted; requesting that it might be performed at his funeral.

I.

DINAS EMLINN, lament; for the moment is nigh,

When mute in the woodlands thine echoes shall die :
No more by sweet Teivi Cadwallon shall rave,
And mix his wild notes with the wild dashing wave.

II.

In spring and in autumn thy glories of shade
Unhonour'd shall flourish, unhonour'd shall fade;
For soon shall be lifeless the eye and the tongue,
That view'd them with rapture, with rapture that sung.